We Are Smarter Than Me

“Two heads are smarter than one.”

So the saying goes. According to the writers of We Are Smarter Than Me: How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business, it might be more appropriate to say “Thousands of heads are smarter than one.” We is, in many ways, a primer on the concept of crowdsourcing - tapping into the collective mass to do what we otherwise would have done on our own, or within our own company/organization. Barry Libert and Jon Spector might have led the work of this collective book, but its conception was carried out by thousands of contributors. The book stands as an example in its own right to the principles it communicates.

Crowdsourcing, whether we realize it or not, has impacted the way most Americans live their days - especially as it pertains to a digital world. It’s hard to go day without having interaction with community product reviews of the like of Amazon, movie suggestions ala Netflix, watching user-generated content in product commercials or even in news programs, and the list goes on. We does a great job of covering the breadth of the impact of the crowd in these types of businesses and more - covering topics from the power of community, to how businesses are using crowds for RandD to sales to product development, to how crowds are funding small and large ventures via collective investing.

The strength of the book, I believe, is in the dozens of case studies used to help illustrate each chapter’s topic, and the number and diversity of topics covered. For anyone whose work depends on keeping abreast on the newest technologies - this book should be a must-read. While it doesn’t dive deep enough into any one side of crowdsourcing, it does a good job of laying out things that you can implement based on the case studies read (a “this is what you can learn from them” mentality). Perhaps the saving grace out of the entire book is the final chapter, “Lead From the Rear,” which spells out eight steps that businesses and organizations can take to avoid pitfalls along the road of crowdsourcing.

The book is a somewhat short read - it’s a little less than 150 words long. However, the cut and dry nature of the text doesn’t make it the most fluid read. The fact that it covers a wide range of crowdsourcing scenarios means that it comes across more as a survey than a how-to book. That being said, it’s a good 101 on how crowds are impacting the way we do business in America. 

Posted 08.25.2008

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